Sony Shuts Down VoIP For PSP, Skype Still Works

Sony (SNE) today announced (on a post at community.eu.playstation.com that apparently no longer works) is was canning support for the BT-backed (BT) Go!Messenger Internet phone service for its PSP gaming device.

gamesindustry.biz : "Although Go! Messenger brought innovative communications features to the PSP community, the service has not developed the base of users that we were hoping for," wrote a spokesperson for Sony.

"Although it proved a popular concept, achieving a significant number of registrations, it didn’t gain the number of regular users that BT and SCEE were aiming for."

PSP calls via eBay-owned (EBAY) Skype still work, though.

We're not too surprised: Skype really is the global standard for Internet phone calls, and Go!Messenger would have had to offer something really innovative to get gamers to use its software and not eBay's.

Still no word on how successful PSP calling is in general: How useful is calling someone on a gaming device tethered to a wi-fi network?